Salvador Minuchin, founder of Structural Family Therapy comments that "the actions and transactions of each one of the family members are not independent entities but part of a necessary movement in the choreography of a ballet.". All families are choreographed a certain way and how the family is structured will have a tremendous impact on the interpersonal relationships within the family. Structural family therapy, developed by Salvador Minuchin, coined various concepts to describe how a family is organized. The three main concepts are: boundaries, hierarchies and subsystems.
Boundaries: Boundaries, as defined by Minuchin (1974), are the rules for negotiating interpersonal closeness and distance. Boundaries exist both internally within the family, as well as externally with those outside of the family. These rules, as discussed by Minuchin, are generally unspoken of and develop over time as two people interact. It is within this relationship, where boundaries are formed in which individuals define when, where and how he prefers to relate to one another. There are three possible boundaries that can exist. They can be either clear, diffused or rigid. Clear boundaries exist when individuals can negotiate between one another, a healthy balance between closeness and separation. Over time, as individuals needs evolve and change, so does their personal relationships. If both individuals within the relationship are able to be flexible and negotiate their rules to one another, they’ve established clear boundaries which are accepted by both parties. In boundaries which are diffused, individuals overvalue closeness at the expense of one’s individuality. As a result, boundaries become diffused and individuals within the relationship may feel a lack of freedom and a loss of autonomy. In boundaries which are rigid, individuality is overvalued at the expense of closeness. As a result, there is disengagement and a loss of emotional connection within the relationship. Hierarchies, as described by Minuchin (1974), are of importance when working with reported issues in child behavior. He describes 3 basic forms of parental hierarchy which exist in the family: 1) Effective parental hierarchy in which the hierarchy is healthy and appropriate. Parents are able to set both boundaries and limits, while also maintaining a healthy emotional connection with their children. 2) Insufficient parental hierarchy in which the parents are unable to set appropriate boundaries and limits in managing their child’s behavior. This translates to a very permissive form of parenting in which typically, the boundaries between the parents and children are highly diffused. 3) Excessive parental hierarchy in which the parents are too strict in their rules and consequences. This translates to a boundary between the parent and child which is too rigid. As a result, there is often a loss of emotional connection between the parent and child. Subsystems as defined by Minuchin (1974), are the dividends or “smaller units” of the family system. The broad subsystems that exist within the family are the parental subsystem, the spousal subsystem and the child subsystem. Understanding how subsystems are formed, is often the most important aspect to assessing how a family is organized. As Gerhart (2014) refers to Minuchin, important questions to consider are 1) “whether there is a clear boundary between the parental and couple subsystems and 2) whether there is a clear boundary between the parental and child subsystems” (p. 131).
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Suffering has a way to reveal our true self. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all place our hope and trust in certain things: health, faith, family, relationships, or ourselves. And sometimes it takes the loss of those things to fully grasp how closely we depended or clung to those things.
What did the pandemic reveal about you and the things you put your hope in? Covid19 brought with it grief and trauma, it brought loss of life and the loss of the things we grasped onto so tightly. As we look forward to life past this unprecedented time, I wonder what revelations you may have realized. Did you realize how fragile life is and how you ought to invest in things more important than just yourself? Maybe you'll appreciate the relationships in your life a bit more than before? Or perhaps you'll live to find a purpose and calling in helping those in need? With a half glass full, the pandemic has shaken humanity to its core and revealed our true self. How will you move forward with the realizations and revelations experienced during this pandemic? Counseling is a collaborative process. Although the counselor has been through significant training and has a certain expertise, clients should be ready to work. That involves coming into sessions with their set of agendas. The client is in the driver's seat of counseling in a sense. Yes, the counselor may have the road map of where sessions must go (while sometimes that roadmap is figured out during the journey counseling collaboratively). It may seem contradictory at first but I believe evidence points to the highest level of effectiveness taking place when individuals learn how to navigate and find out their own roadmap. The role of counselors then is to ask the right questions through reflection that lead the client, it is sometimes to give tools, or other times to validate the challenging path towards healing, or to respectfully challenge clients to reassess how they may process something so that they can reprocess unhealthy narratives, or other times to mirror the client through questioning to raise self-awareness.
"Time heals all wounds."
It's true that time can take away the initial sting of a wound, but it doesn't equate to healing. In fact, the opposite is true. If a wound is never addressed and worked through properly, it can fester and worsen over time. The wound can develop such an exterior of scar tissue that the tenderness of the wound is no longer detectible. This leads to detachment, disconnection and numbness. Not to mention that the effects of unprocessed pain can be catastrophic because of the effect it can have in multiple areas of one's life. Time does not heal all wounds. Time does not substitute the need to work through pain and walk towards healing. It is a hard work because of how overwhelmingly difficult feelings of anger, frustration, grief and sadness can be. But if we want to have a healthy self and healthy relationships, we must do that difficult work. Emmet Lyons from CNN recently released an article, "The Covid pandemic is highlighting men's mental health and how they can seek help." It's surprising that so many deem counseling as something only for those "mentally ill," or "with major issues." This is one of the stigmas that unfortunately keep individuals at bay from seeking counseling. Alongside that stigma is the masculine culture that so many have grown up in--the culture that says that men should "be strong" and "never show weakness." It's become a toxic culture that has only damaged men's ability to effectively deal with the stressors that life presents. And the statistics are clear, men are far more unlikely to ask for help than women.
If the pandemic revealed anything that we can take forward in the years ahead, it is just how fragile life is and just how important our health is (physical, emotional and social). It revealed that we should be proactive in dealing with the challenges of life. Although a cliche and true, it is never too late to learn to confront our struggles. This next generation of men that are being raised have to be told that it is masculine to talk about your problems and learn ways to deal with them. Men should be leaders in teaching/modeling healthy ways to deal with stress. We need to do better. We need to raise our awareness of our insecurities, we need to confront and deal with those deep seeded attachment wounds from childhood and we need to learn healthy ways to cope with our problems. We need to get comfortable with vulnerability because it is within vulnerability where real strength lies because it communicates that we are willing to deal head on with the issues at hand. Infant Developmental Stage
There has been an increasing amount of diagnosis in mental health circles. While a diagnosis is helpful in allowing therapist's to treat clients and follow a treatment plan using evidence based treatments, it can also be detrimental if therapist's just label a client with a diagnosis with the intent of medicating. The truth is that if you follow the money trail, a diagnosis means more money for insurance companies.
Therapist's have to have high integrity in treating the whole person. Why do you have symptoms of anxiety, depression, etc? There is a context behind the symptoms. Simply treating the symptom will never resolve the deep root issue. While medication for depression can provide some help, it is never the magic pill we all wish it could be in helping resolve our depression. You don't need anyone to tell you that teenagers are a difficult breed. They are on the precipice of adulthood, while being stuck in a body still trying to figure itself out through puberty. Male teenagers can especially be challenging because they are immersed in a culture where they are being told to always "man up," and "stop crying." As a result, they may deal with problems by either running away through avoidance and distraction (this can be manifested through being glued to their phones, constantly playing video games and exhibiting a lack of emotion) or by showing oppositional behavior. What teenage boys aren't taught in this culture, is how to cope with the daily stressors of life.
I've seen so many adults in their mid 30s and 40s who wished they could have gone back in time to learn how to process and cope with negative experiences and emotions. The stigma of counseling is starting to change and it's better now than later to invest in counseling for your teenager. It'll save years of problems and equip them with the right tools and awareness that it is best to deal with negative stressors head on, coupled with healthy coping skills. Whether through social media feeds or news outlets, it’s so easy to be inundated with news that can trigger personal trauma. You may not be aware of it in the moment when you’re scrolling through your phone or catching a short reel of the top news around the world, but your body is keeping score. It’s been shown that if trauma isn’t worked through within the first 90 days, that it can metabolize within your body and ‘be stuck.’ Over time, symptoms can arise that may have its roots in unresolved trauma. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t seek medical help to address the physical symptoms, but that is to say that it is important to work through unresolved traumas. I’ve worked with many who are well into adulthood who have learned to deal with traumas by “sucking it up.” They learn to cope through forms of distraction and avoidance and as a result, never wind up dealing with their trauma. You've heard the analogy before--if you don't address a small cut, it may fester into something that's worse. Don't allow time to continue to pass with your unresolved trauma. It'll be the best investment you can make--there isn't a promise that it won't be easy, but it'll certainly be worth it.
Guidelines for Sex Education with Children.
The General Principle: Honesty is the best policy! Don’t tell children something you don’t believe and practice yourself. Remember, children don’t just follow what you say, but how you behave. Model healthy intimacy.
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